Acceptance - MH issues

[Wishing1988]

Another thread from me but slightly different topic this time.
One of the things that I know really helps recovery from MH issues is acceptance. Acceptance that it's happening, of the feelings, of that it's part of us.
This is something I really struggle with. I try to banish the feelings and want the period of bad MH to be over as soon as possible and not to think about it again. This resistance makes things worse and makes me feel even worse on the bad days.
So I wondered, for all of you out there who struggle with your MH - how do you find acceptance and use this to work through things?

I'm not sure about acceptance but I've become really good at letting go of things mentally the moment I feel the brooding mood or excessive mind-chat. I learnt to do this through listening to Eckhart Tolle on youtube.

Acceptance comes when the emotional pain that you experience through day to day avoidance becomes so great that you either face a choice of wanting to die or seek help. It’s a realisation moment that the avoidance or crutch strategies are ineffective, short lived or creating shame or bigger problems. It’s a state of mind really brought about by suffering. Acceptance is a willingness to sit with your pain, to accept a diagnosis or tag in order to access therapy or support. A willingness to follow a light and a way out with all the bumps and set backs. It’s having humility and seeing that “my way” isn’t necessarily the right way.

Hey
I have a long term MH issue and I struggle to accept that it's the way I am.
I fight it which probably isnt helpful.

My therapist encourages me to think about the feelings and why I am feeling them. Clearly that is not always practical in the moment - if you start feeling unexpected fury at a work meeting you just have to squash the feeling as best you can and maybe try to work out why it erupted later on. But generally speaking I find that noticing and naming the feeling to myself takes the edge off quite quickly and then taking a curious interest in it makes the feeling last for a much shorter time than it would otherwise. Sometimes I can even work out what triggered it, which is very useful information.

This is good and is much the way I saw things when I had a slow motion breakdown some years ago. Painful memories of a childhood issue I'd hidden from myself were suddenly triggered by a conversation with a friend and I was completely blindsided by the memories and had to take time off work as I could barely speak. There followed years of working through one hidden issue that suddenly emerged, coasting for a short while and then another one popped up. Fortunately I had help, but it was such hard work.

I remember a light bulb moment of saying to myself 'the only way out of this is through it', so I patiently waited as each suppressed memory rose from the backwaters of my memory and then dealt with it. I even learned to recognise when it was about to happen again as I'd have headaches and would become overly sensitive to certain noises. To me it felt like my subconscious had been stirred. It felt like a swamp that, once disturbed, started to send up noxious gasses where the bubbles would wobble up to the surface and then pop into my active memory, leaving a greasy, foul stench to be slowly dissipated.

For me the best thing I found was Inner Child work, comforting and healing the child within. It's been enormously comforting work to do. Yes, the key is acceptance. That and patience.

I say to myself: 'This won't get better unless you accept it. Fighting it and getting angry about it makes it worse. Accept how low/ill you feel. Accept that today you just can't. Tomorrow might be better. But berating yourself for being ill never helps. Don't do it.

I do find that helps. Is that the sort of thing you mean?

@WinterFoxes I kind of get the accepting how low and ill you feel but I find not knowing how long I'm going to feel like that really hard

Thanks all for your replies. I'm glad that this thread has made a resurgence.
Part of what I struggle with most is acceptance and allowing and sitting with the feelings. I fight it and it doesn't help.
Your suggestions and comments are really helpful and really good to read. Thank you

Agree with this. When I'm feeling really low or anxious it feels harder because sometimes it feels like it'll last forever!