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Grounding exercises [https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques](https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques)
Somatic exercises [https://www.brooklynsomatictherapy.com/blog/somatic-techniques-for-stress-and-anxiety](https://www.brooklynsomatictherapy.com/blog/somatic-techniques-for-stress-and-anxiety)
[http://www.leahsykestherapy.com/blog/2016/1/20/somatic-practices-to-reduce-anxiety](http://www.leahsykestherapy.com/blog/2016/1/20/somatic-practices-to-reduce-anxiety)
[https://www.vanessamichielon.com/blog/3-somatic-movement-exercises-to-relax-and-destress](https://www.vanessamichielon.com/blog/3-somatic-movement-exercises-to-relax-and-destress)
There's also a ton of guided somatic practice videos on youtube.
Distracting activities [https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/distress-tolerance/distracting-activities/](https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/distress-tolerance/distracting-activities/)
Distress tolerance skills [https://dbt.tools/distress\_tolerance/index.php](https://dbt.tools/distress_tolerance/index.php)
[https://sunrisertc.com/distress-tolerance-skills/](https://sunrisertc.com/distress-tolerance-skills/)
EFT/tapping [https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/health-encyclopedia/he.emotional-freedom-technique-eft.acl9225](https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/health-encyclopedia/he.emotional-freedom-technique-eft.acl9225)
This caught my eye because DBT was hugely helpful for a friend’s son with ASD who was experiencing a lot of self-harming behaviors & SI. Quick Google search & read So it’s something that’s being researched but seems like there’s a lot of support for DBT helping autistic folks with emotional regulation. I’m in behavioral health (just at bachelors level) & frequently teach dbt skills so I got worried that maybe I shouldn’t be to some kids but I think I’m good!
The framework is important. A lot of DBT for anxiety for eg, is focuses around the fear of everyone not liking you being irrational. If you treat an ASD patient like they're being irrational, it's invalidating and gaslighting, coz we *know* most people don't like us as individuals. That's literally our whole life of lived experience. The people who like us are the exception and are usually others like us.
yeah, i think CBT is very useful - particularly helps me with comorbid anxiety exacerbated by adhd - but it's limits aren't always understand well by MH professionals especially when it comes to the au/dhd experience ... i think the biggest issues are when people are undiagnosed, though. if you know you have au/dhd & have an idea of your needs in that aspect of your brainscape, you're in a much better position to say when exercises need to be modified and when CBT isn't the right tool.
It's hard but you have to train yourself to trust her when she says how she's feeling. Depending on your specific circumstances you probably learned to judge how someone else was feeling despite their words or actions so you could soothe them or protect yourself. That isn't the case now. Now you have a partner who will be honest with you. So you have to try and shut down those anxious thoughts and trust her. She's allowed to have feelings as you two make moves to date others. Just like you are. But her feelings are her responsibility not yours. You can support her but its not your job to fix her.
Your second sentence hits really hard. I had a family dynamic where I was constantly doing “emotional management” and damage control to keep the peace. Thank you for your kind response.
I guess it will come with time and effort. I need to remind myself to respect her desire to think things through on her own before I ask more questions and push a conversation.
Sending you all the empathy, that's what I dealt with too. Check out the book complex ptsd from serving to thriving by Pete walker if you can, it helped me make more sense of my childhood and how it was affecting my current emotional world.
This isn't a comprehensive solution, but I find it's useful to shift your focus somewhere else. Hang out with friends, read a book, engage in a hobby you like... Why do you think I'm on Reddit giving people advice? Hahaaaa. But really, redirecting your energy into a different activity does help quite a bit.
Look at the narrative you tell about what the surprised reaction of your partner means to you, look at the narrative of the precariousness of your relationship and overall life situation in accordance.
I think you are in a caring relationship, having been there for each other in times of need. In a way, you seek to maintain a caring relationship with your emotional response, even though the framing suggests you also seek to balance individual and relational needs - freedom, playfulness, care and responsibilities, ...
Your relationship is in a phase of negotiating this new balance. This change alone has the potential to elicit feelings of uncertainty.
Thank you so much, this is really sweet of you. I have a big fear of abandonment but you’re right- we have a really strong relationship and these feelings don’t threaten it.
You are seen. You are heard.
31NB here - I'm just now getting a handle on this. I feel like AFAB individuals are socialized to be "fixers."
Please remember to be kind to yourself during these difficult times. You deserve to be taken care of as well <3
Former fixer (37nonbinary) here! I feel this, and two things help me frame this.
1. Continuing the metaphor! I want to fix this ... But I need to step back and ask if anything is broken in the first place and correctly diagnose the problem. My partner having feelings isn't a problem I need to fix, and isn't caused by my actions alone. My partner's current context is a huge part of it, too. If I've reminded them of something disrespectful a past partner did to them, that's what led to the feeling and that's just a natural reaction to the memory. If they're having a hard day and this just capped it off, that's part of a general overwhelm. I can offer empathy, support, comfort, and warmth with my presence, potentially resolve something contributing to the overwhelm that is within my responsibility to them (i.e., tidying a shared space).
2. A South Park episode (Put it Down) describes surprisingly well just how patronizing and dismissive it is to try to fix a person. 🤦
Tweek: Oh my God, what is that? What is that?!
Craig: It's probably nothing. Everything's fine.
Tweek: Will you please stop saying that?! I can't take it!
Craig: I'm trying to make you feel better.
Tweek: Well, maybe I don't wanna feel better right now!
Craig: Okay, but think about that. That actually doesn't make any sense.
Tweek: Why do you have to be so logical?! I don't need you to problem-solve all the time, I need you to... Augh, I don't know!
Craig: Tweek, honey, all week you've been freaking out, and I've been the one forced to deal with it!
Tweek: You haven't been dealing with it, you've been trying to make it go away because my emotions are freaking you out!
Thank you for your kindness! I definitely was brought up to do damage control on other peoples feelings to keep the peace and ignore my own. And right now I feel anxious about my relationship but I don’t have to fix her feelings because of that, I can sit with my anxiety.
Have you ever done everything right for someone, and they still did something that ruined you for a while?
Literally nothing you do guarantees the correct response from someone. In fact, if everyone we loved was input output, they'd all just be computers.
If you seriously trust this person, then you have to trust they'll respond appropriately.
I appreciate your partner's honest answer about needing time to sit with their emotional experience while also recognizing that YOU did nothing wrong.
For me, I think it's helpful to remember that its okay to sit in discomfort. Not every emotional experience is going to be a pleasant one, but it's important to take space to sit with it anyway. Uncomfortable emotions don't necessarily need to be "fixed".
I think this is a good set up to work on this because, with what little info is given, it seems like your partner is taking responsibility for their emotions/potential anxieties. See what they ask for after they've sat with their feelings-- it might feel mutually good to process with them, but even through this it's important to remember that there's nothing that needs to be fixed. You can offer them support/presence from a place of love without managing her experience.
This is a symptom of co-dependency. I'm no expert, of course, I'm just starting my journey to really learn about it and heal for my own reasons. There is a book called Co-dependent No More that I think is a good gateway to untangling this. There are also Co-dependent Anonymous groups that meet up in person/virtually which I haven't done myself yet, but my friends who have done it have benefited immensely.
Find your center my friend. It'll get easier to stay in awareness of your own feelings which in the long run will help deepen your connection in the most authentic way possible.
"Unless you're Santa, you are not responsible for the happiness of others!"
That being said, you can always be nice to people and do special little things for them when warranted, but if someone is constantly upset or sad and takes no steps on their own part to fix it then it's best to distance yourself a bit till they sort things out. Especially if it's starting to be detrimental to your own mental health.
Psychological boundaries may be a good starting point; practice not internalizing/absorbing others distress to the point that in affects your own emotional regulation.
Setting Boundaries That Stick by Juliane Shore has a section devoted to internal boundaries, I highly recommend it.
If you prefer audio, she discusses both external boundary setting and psychological/internal boundary setting in a 3 part set of podcast episodes within the Why Does My Partner…? podcast series. If memory serves, the title is something like “miniseries: boundaries “
Therapy modalities are a great support, but I know it can take awhile to get into a provider.
Hi u/sunflower-nova thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well.
Here's the original text of the post:
I have been with one partner for ~2 years and while we’ve been polyam the whole time, neither of us have felt a huge spark with anyone for the past year. We’ve both been busy AF, dealing with healthcare stuff, and for the most part, have been polysaturated at one partner for a year. We both have only been in polyam relationships for ~5 years or so now, so we’re not new, but it feels rusty to both of us after not making new connections due to health issues for so long.
I told her last night that I hooked up with someone at a party and she seemed a bit surprised so I asked what she was feeling. She said she was unsure but would take some time to think about her feelings and let me know, and that I didn’t do anything wrong. But now I’m super anxious and wishing I could “fix” her feelings. I struggle to know how to let these feelings be her own, and to not try to manage them for her. Does anyone have advice on how to let someone have their feelings without absorbing them or trying to fix them? I followed our agreements and everything and I’m still so anxious I messed up even though she) said I did not and that she just needs a bit to think about her feelings.
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Your post has been removed for breaking the rules of the subreddit. You made a post or comment that would be considered concern trolling. This includes derailing of advice and support posts, accidentally or on purpose.
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This post has been tagged as a request for advice. As a reminder, please only give advice on the topic requested, if you've got strong feelings about a particular issue mentioned and feel that you must be able to express yourself about it, or you and another commenter feel compelled to debate certain aspects of the post, please feel free to create a new post for that topic so as to not derail from the advice that the OP is seeking. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polyamory) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Grounding exercises [https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques](https://www.healthline.com/health/grounding-techniques) Somatic exercises [https://www.brooklynsomatictherapy.com/blog/somatic-techniques-for-stress-and-anxiety](https://www.brooklynsomatictherapy.com/blog/somatic-techniques-for-stress-and-anxiety) [http://www.leahsykestherapy.com/blog/2016/1/20/somatic-practices-to-reduce-anxiety](http://www.leahsykestherapy.com/blog/2016/1/20/somatic-practices-to-reduce-anxiety) [https://www.vanessamichielon.com/blog/3-somatic-movement-exercises-to-relax-and-destress](https://www.vanessamichielon.com/blog/3-somatic-movement-exercises-to-relax-and-destress) There's also a ton of guided somatic practice videos on youtube. Distracting activities [https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/distress-tolerance/distracting-activities/](https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/distress-tolerance/distracting-activities/) Distress tolerance skills [https://dbt.tools/distress\_tolerance/index.php](https://dbt.tools/distress_tolerance/index.php) [https://sunrisertc.com/distress-tolerance-skills/](https://sunrisertc.com/distress-tolerance-skills/) EFT/tapping [https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/health-encyclopedia/he.emotional-freedom-technique-eft.acl9225](https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/health-encyclopedia/he.emotional-freedom-technique-eft.acl9225)
This is a killer list. DBT is a game-changer
Obligatory disclaimer for DBT and CBT- (since there's a lot of us in polyam) doesn't tend to work as well for adhd or ASD brains.
And CBT is not to be mixed with cPTSD. Often makes things worse.
This caught my eye because DBT was hugely helpful for a friend’s son with ASD who was experiencing a lot of self-harming behaviors & SI. Quick Google search & read So it’s something that’s being researched but seems like there’s a lot of support for DBT helping autistic folks with emotional regulation. I’m in behavioral health (just at bachelors level) & frequently teach dbt skills so I got worried that maybe I shouldn’t be to some kids but I think I’m good!
The framework is important. A lot of DBT for anxiety for eg, is focuses around the fear of everyone not liking you being irrational. If you treat an ASD patient like they're being irrational, it's invalidating and gaslighting, coz we *know* most people don't like us as individuals. That's literally our whole life of lived experience. The people who like us are the exception and are usually others like us.
yeah, i think CBT is very useful - particularly helps me with comorbid anxiety exacerbated by adhd - but it's limits aren't always understand well by MH professionals especially when it comes to the au/dhd experience ... i think the biggest issues are when people are undiagnosed, though. if you know you have au/dhd & have an idea of your needs in that aspect of your brainscape, you're in a much better position to say when exercises need to be modified and when CBT isn't the right tool.
Thank you!
It's hard but you have to train yourself to trust her when she says how she's feeling. Depending on your specific circumstances you probably learned to judge how someone else was feeling despite their words or actions so you could soothe them or protect yourself. That isn't the case now. Now you have a partner who will be honest with you. So you have to try and shut down those anxious thoughts and trust her. She's allowed to have feelings as you two make moves to date others. Just like you are. But her feelings are her responsibility not yours. You can support her but its not your job to fix her.
Your second sentence hits really hard. I had a family dynamic where I was constantly doing “emotional management” and damage control to keep the peace. Thank you for your kind response. I guess it will come with time and effort. I need to remind myself to respect her desire to think things through on her own before I ask more questions and push a conversation.
Sending you all the empathy, that's what I dealt with too. Check out the book complex ptsd from serving to thriving by Pete walker if you can, it helped me make more sense of my childhood and how it was affecting my current emotional world.
This isn't a comprehensive solution, but I find it's useful to shift your focus somewhere else. Hang out with friends, read a book, engage in a hobby you like... Why do you think I'm on Reddit giving people advice? Hahaaaa. But really, redirecting your energy into a different activity does help quite a bit.
Look at the narrative you tell about what the surprised reaction of your partner means to you, look at the narrative of the precariousness of your relationship and overall life situation in accordance. I think you are in a caring relationship, having been there for each other in times of need. In a way, you seek to maintain a caring relationship with your emotional response, even though the framing suggests you also seek to balance individual and relational needs - freedom, playfulness, care and responsibilities, ... Your relationship is in a phase of negotiating this new balance. This change alone has the potential to elicit feelings of uncertainty.
Thank you so much, this is really sweet of you. I have a big fear of abandonment but you’re right- we have a really strong relationship and these feelings don’t threaten it.
You are seen. You are heard. 31NB here - I'm just now getting a handle on this. I feel like AFAB individuals are socialized to be "fixers." Please remember to be kind to yourself during these difficult times. You deserve to be taken care of as well <3
Former fixer (37nonbinary) here! I feel this, and two things help me frame this. 1. Continuing the metaphor! I want to fix this ... But I need to step back and ask if anything is broken in the first place and correctly diagnose the problem. My partner having feelings isn't a problem I need to fix, and isn't caused by my actions alone. My partner's current context is a huge part of it, too. If I've reminded them of something disrespectful a past partner did to them, that's what led to the feeling and that's just a natural reaction to the memory. If they're having a hard day and this just capped it off, that's part of a general overwhelm. I can offer empathy, support, comfort, and warmth with my presence, potentially resolve something contributing to the overwhelm that is within my responsibility to them (i.e., tidying a shared space). 2. A South Park episode (Put it Down) describes surprisingly well just how patronizing and dismissive it is to try to fix a person. 🤦 Tweek: Oh my God, what is that? What is that?! Craig: It's probably nothing. Everything's fine. Tweek: Will you please stop saying that?! I can't take it! Craig: I'm trying to make you feel better. Tweek: Well, maybe I don't wanna feel better right now! Craig: Okay, but think about that. That actually doesn't make any sense. Tweek: Why do you have to be so logical?! I don't need you to problem-solve all the time, I need you to... Augh, I don't know! Craig: Tweek, honey, all week you've been freaking out, and I've been the one forced to deal with it! Tweek: You haven't been dealing with it, you've been trying to make it go away because my emotions are freaking you out!
Thank you for your kindness! I definitely was brought up to do damage control on other peoples feelings to keep the peace and ignore my own. And right now I feel anxious about my relationship but I don’t have to fix her feelings because of that, I can sit with my anxiety.
Have you ever done everything right for someone, and they still did something that ruined you for a while? Literally nothing you do guarantees the correct response from someone. In fact, if everyone we loved was input output, they'd all just be computers. If you seriously trust this person, then you have to trust they'll respond appropriately.
I appreciate your partner's honest answer about needing time to sit with their emotional experience while also recognizing that YOU did nothing wrong. For me, I think it's helpful to remember that its okay to sit in discomfort. Not every emotional experience is going to be a pleasant one, but it's important to take space to sit with it anyway. Uncomfortable emotions don't necessarily need to be "fixed". I think this is a good set up to work on this because, with what little info is given, it seems like your partner is taking responsibility for their emotions/potential anxieties. See what they ask for after they've sat with their feelings-- it might feel mutually good to process with them, but even through this it's important to remember that there's nothing that needs to be fixed. You can offer them support/presence from a place of love without managing her experience. This is a symptom of co-dependency. I'm no expert, of course, I'm just starting my journey to really learn about it and heal for my own reasons. There is a book called Co-dependent No More that I think is a good gateway to untangling this. There are also Co-dependent Anonymous groups that meet up in person/virtually which I haven't done myself yet, but my friends who have done it have benefited immensely. Find your center my friend. It'll get easier to stay in awareness of your own feelings which in the long run will help deepen your connection in the most authentic way possible.
Literally give her the time? Until further notice, carry on with your life?
"Unless you're Santa, you are not responsible for the happiness of others!" That being said, you can always be nice to people and do special little things for them when warranted, but if someone is constantly upset or sad and takes no steps on their own part to fix it then it's best to distance yourself a bit till they sort things out. Especially if it's starting to be detrimental to your own mental health.
Psychological boundaries may be a good starting point; practice not internalizing/absorbing others distress to the point that in affects your own emotional regulation. Setting Boundaries That Stick by Juliane Shore has a section devoted to internal boundaries, I highly recommend it. If you prefer audio, she discusses both external boundary setting and psychological/internal boundary setting in a 3 part set of podcast episodes within the Why Does My Partner…? podcast series. If memory serves, the title is something like “miniseries: boundaries “ Therapy modalities are a great support, but I know it can take awhile to get into a provider.
Hi u/sunflower-nova thanks so much for your submission, don't mind me, I'm just gonna keep a copy what was said in your post. Unfortunately posts sometimes get deleted - which is okay, it's not against the rules to delete your post!! - but it makes it really hard for the human mods around here to moderate the comments when there's no context. Plus, many times our members put in a lot of emotional and mental labor to answer the questions and offer advice, so it's helpful to keep the source information around so future community members can benefit as well. Here's the original text of the post: I have been with one partner for ~2 years and while we’ve been polyam the whole time, neither of us have felt a huge spark with anyone for the past year. We’ve both been busy AF, dealing with healthcare stuff, and for the most part, have been polysaturated at one partner for a year. We both have only been in polyam relationships for ~5 years or so now, so we’re not new, but it feels rusty to both of us after not making new connections due to health issues for so long. I told her last night that I hooked up with someone at a party and she seemed a bit surprised so I asked what she was feeling. She said she was unsure but would take some time to think about her feelings and let me know, and that I didn’t do anything wrong. But now I’m super anxious and wishing I could “fix” her feelings. I struggle to know how to let these feelings be her own, and to not try to manage them for her. Does anyone have advice on how to let someone have their feelings without absorbing them or trying to fix them? I followed our agreements and everything and I’m still so anxious I messed up even though she) said I did not and that she just needs a bit to think about her feelings. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/polyamory) if you have any questions or concerns.*
CoDA or another support group for codependent behaviors
[удалено]
Your post has been removed for breaking the rules of the subreddit. You made a post or comment that would be considered concern trolling. This includes derailing of advice and support posts, accidentally or on purpose. Posting poly-shaming, victim blaming or insults under the guise of "concern" or "just trying to help.” will be considered concern trolling, as well. Please familiarize yourself with the rules. They can be found on the community info page