RainbowAttack

💜 Now updated with a hopeful addition at the end, and with links to this same post on other social media, as well as a link to my Hopepunk playlist. 💜

It’s not a diagnosing criteria, but most people with BPD that I’ve met struggle with something called lack of emotional permanence.

I’m hoping that by sharing my experience with having a lack of emotional permanence, people without bpd will come to be a little more understanding of certain behaviors that people with bpd often do that, from the outside looking in, might seem outlandish or bizzare or over-reacting.

I find that non-borderline people often don’t get why I’m acting the way I am and are comparing my behavior to their own experience and assuming that my relationship with emotions is the same as theirs is, and judging me based on how they think that would handle a situation.

What is emotional permanence? Well, you’ve probably heard of object permanence. It’s a term used to describe a stage of childhood development where a kid develops the ability to recognize that things continue to exist after they go away (this is why “peek-a-boo” works as a game for tiny children… they literally are surprised every single time your face reappears, because to them you stop existing when you are no longer visible). Children at this age lack object permanence.

People with BPD often experience the emotional equivalent of this.

I can only ever describe my experience with this symptom, but other people with bpd that I’ve talked to have shared similar experiences with me.A lack of emotional permanence kind of a two pronged thing.

So the first part of of the struggle with emotional permanence that I’m going to talk about is our ability to perceive/understand/engage with others feelings for us.

Here’s a thought exercise for non-borderline people: think about someone you love who loves you back who isn’t with you right now. Think about how they feel about you. Think about how nice and safe it feels to know that you are loved.

I bet you probably have a warm, glowy feeling when you think about that. That must be really nice. I wouldn’t know.

I have a general understanding of what this is like because I read a lot and others have described it to me. It sounds really, really lovely. I envy people that experience.

When I try to think about how other people feel about me (when they are not actively right there telling me how they feel about me), I tend to draw a blank. I literally can not experience that emotional recall. It has stopped existing in a substantial, interactable way. It is not real to me.

It turns to static, or maybe ashes. Like when something is burned up but the shape of it is left in ash, but the moment you touch it, it just blows away in the wind. There was clearly something there, I know what it was, but I can’t interact with it.

It’s like having a folder on your computer labled “other people’s feelings for me”. I can see that there is a folder there. I know what should be in that folder. When I go to click on that folder, there are files in it for all of my relationships. I can see the files are there. I can see that they exist.

But for me, when I go to open the file? It’s been corrupted. It’s gibberish. It’s just strings of numbers and letters. I can’t read it.

I *know* that there should be something there. I *know* what the contents should be.

But when that person is there, it’s almost like they have the ability to unscramble the file, or to restore it, I guess. I can read it, I can feel it, it feels real to me. I can open it, interact with it, it is real.

Lovely. Wonderful.

But when they leave? Like literally, when they are not right there with me? The file goes back to being gibberish.

This means that when I am with someone, I get to experience an understanding and belief that the other person loves me and likes me and wants to be with me. Those things feel real.

But when the other person isn’t there? I lose my ability to understand that as real.

I can try to convince myself that it is real. “They just told me they love me like one hour ago. Feelings don’t change that quickly” I might say to myself.

In response, my brain just fires back with internet dialup noises and error messages, or maybe with a “sounds fake, blocked” meme.

It might take a few days, or a day, or an hour, but eventually, my ability to concieve of other people’s positive feelings for me disappears completely. It just drains away. I don’t get to hold onto it.

Another metaphor I use sometimes is that it is like having items in a video game that you can’t currently equip. Like, it’s in your inventory, but for whatever reason it’s just kinda grayed out and you can’t even select it.

And everyone is like, WHY DON’T YOU JUST USE YOUR BATTLE AX? I GAVE YOU THAT BATTLE AX SO YOU COULD USE IT FOR THIS? And I’m like, uhhh…I can’t use it? I just can’t? Like, I can’t even get to it? I try to touch it and it’s not there???

And then they get mad because they think that I don’t *like* their ax or they think I am *ignoring* their ax or that I’m being *willful and stubborn* and just choosing to not use their ax but like I LITERALLY CAN’T EQUIP YOUR AX OF FRIENDSHIPLOVE MY DUDE. MY BRAIN-STATS ARE TOO LOW AND I JUST CAN’T EQUIP IT UNLESS YOU’RE HERE.

And then when they are there and I can finally equip it, they are like, SEE you can use that ax! I knew it! Why do you lie so much and make such a big deal out of everything? 🙄

Another way to think about this is to imagine a cup with tiny holes drilled into the bottom. This is my ability to hold on to and recall feelings of love and validation from people who are in my life.

Everyone has a cup, whether they are mentally ill or not.

A full cup represents a healthy, well - tended, loving relationship. An empty cup means the absolute end of a relationship, where every good feeling about that person goes away.

Neurotypical people have cups that don’t have holes. They can recall and experience emotions after they have happened. Their cup can hold these feelings all of the time.

Yes, those feelings need to be periodically “topped off” to be maintained (general relationship maintenance), but overall their cups stay full once filled, as long as the relationship remains close and healthy. .

When a relationship ends, or someone breaks trust with you or abandons you, that cup is emptied. This is a deeply painful experience for anyone, mental ill or not.

For *anyone*, an empty cup would be the equivalent of the end of a relationship, the end of caring about that person, the end of any good feelings. Being able to fill the cup means the relationship is being maintained and is safe and healthy.

It doesn’t work like that with my cup. My cup has tiny holes in it, or cracks. When someone is there with me, giving their love and attention and affection, it fills the cup….for now.

As long as they are interacting and paying attention and offering support and validation, the cup appears (to the outside viewer) to be full. The moment they leave, though, all of those feelings and emotions start to drain away, until I’m left with nothing.

*I cannot fill my own cup*

Let me repeat that:

I CANNOT FILL MY OWN CUP.

Once it’s empty, I need attention or validation or reassurance to “refill” it, because empty cup = destroyed relationship, they hate me, all of those positive feelings are gone.

This also means that when I try to think about how you feel about me when you’re not right there with me  (or if you haven’t been directly paying attention to me), I probably default to “well, they probably hate me now ”. 

It doesn’t matter whether or not we just saw eachother two days ago and you told me how much you love me earlier this morning. To me, that’s not real. It’s gone. I can’t hold on to it.

For me, if you’re not right there telling me that you love me, it means that you probably hate me. I know, it’s ass-backwards. It doesn’t make sense without context. But this is a big part of what a lack of emotional permanence entails.

It’s why my need for validation and reassurance feels (and can come off as) FRANTIC. That’s a diagnosing criteria: frantic attempts to avoid real *OR IMAGINED* abandonment.

The thing is, even if I know logically that the abandonment is imagined, it doesn’t matter. My brain still responds emotionally as if the abandonment is real.

I CANNOT CONTROL THIS INITIAL RESPONSE.

When I’m reaching out for attention or validation, it is literally because my mind has upped the stakes to the worst possible outcome: you are leaving. You have abandoned me. You hate me now.

It doesn’t matter how much PROOF I have that this isn’t true. My cup is broken. I can’t do anything about that. It’s not my fault my cup is broken. I’m not seeking these things to be dramatic. My cup is literally empty.

Think about the misery and despair and irrational fear you might experience when a valued relationship is coming to an end. I experience this daily, and EVEN THOUGH I KNOW IT’S NOT LOGICAL, I still experience it.

I can’t talk myself out of it. Knowing what’s happening doesn’t mean that I can change it. It just means that now, I’m judging myself for my response ON TOP of the initial misery.

I can try to ignore it (how often are you able to ignore crushing misery?). I can try to distract myself (it might work for a little bit but the moment I’m not completely immersed in whatever I’m doing, the misery returns).

Or I can give in to the urge to act on the ONLY thing that will actually make the misery go away (even if it’s temporary) : I can seek out attention and validation.

These are my only options.

So it’s not surprising, from the outside looking in, that people with BPD are called drama queens or are accused of being manipulative to get love and attention and validation.

What you might call manipulative, I call finally making the screaming in my head stop for a few minutes. What you call being a drama queen, I call having the ability to function without the crushing weight of that frantic misery taking up 90% of my processing power and ability to function.

And here’s a thing you might not think about: if I have managed to resist the impulse to seek these things out from you (through using skills or distracting myself or whatever), IT DOESN’T MEAN THAT I’M NOT EXPERIENCING THE FRANTIC MISERY.

I might appear outwardly to be calm and rational, but that is only because I am SO TERRIFIED that if I act on my urges to seek that attention and validation and love from you, that you will think that I am toxic and manipulative and you will hate me and you will leave.

If I am not acting on these urges, it is only through a MASSIVE FORCE OF WILL AND TOLERATING A CRUSHING LEVEL OF DISTRESS.

By not acting on these urges, I am consigning myself to continuing to experience this frantic misery and despair EVEN THOUGH THE ANSWER TO STOPPING IT IS LITERALLY POTENTIALLY AVAILABLE IF I JUST ASK YOU FOR IT. But asking for it, or seeking it out in other ways is often seen as manipulative or toxic.

So what do you do? Like literally, what would you do to make that stop? What options do we have?

Here’s the thing: if I am not asking you for these things, it is because I am terrified of you leaving and I have no choice but to continue to suffer, with ***INCREASING INTENSITY***, if I want you to not eventually hate me for these behaviors.

And sometimes, even this terror isn’t enough to stop these behaviors.

Because I say ‘behaviors’, but what I’m talking about here are symptoms of a severe and persistent mental illness.

But I don’t get kudos for NOT acting on these urges. I don’t get recognized for tolerating this crushing frantic misery. People just expect you to be this way.

And the only time they have anything to say to you about it is when the intensity of these emotions is so powerful and unrelenting that I give in to the urges associated with making it stop. And then I’m selfish. Toxic. Manipulative.

They never see the energy I’m expending every time I *DON’T* act on those urges. They don’t see the nights spent awake until 4 AM, sobbing uncontrollably into my pillow, literally trembling with misery and despair over something that I DAMN WELL KNOW isn’t true but can’t stop feeling, all because I don’t want to put YOU through the discomfort of being exposed to ME.

But I’m selfish. Okay. 🙃

The second part of how this manifests in my life is how I interact with emotions as they are happening.

It is incredibly difficult for me to engage with any emotion that isn’t happening right now. That does two things.

One thing it does is that it makes it so that I am unable to interact with the memories of the experience of other emotions.

So for example, I have a really hard time remembering what happiness is like when I am very depressed. When I am depressed, that one single moment of depression is all that has ever existed.

It’s pretty much the same as the ‘relationship folders’ . The full concept of 'happiness’ is stored in a folder that I can see and understand, but is corrupted and unaccessible until happiness comes again to unlock my ability to fully conceptualize that emotion.

I also have a hard time interacting with negative emotions about someone that has hurt me a bunch of times when they are currently being nice to me, or interacting with overall positive emotions about someone when they have done something shitty.

All of those complicated emotions that *should* be taken into account as one full picture end up just… disjointed and broken.

These feelings are broken off into something similar to those 'emotion/relationship’ folders, where my ability to interact with my understanding of different sides of people’s personalities are locked in emotion-specific folders that can only be fully unlocked when I’m experiencing that same emotion, when I’m around that person.

Yeah, I know. It’s fucked. Even thinking about it long enough to explain it makes my brain hurt and vibrate with cognitive dissonance.

It’s even more confusing and frustrating than it sounds, because we KNOW what belongs in each folder, we KNOW that actually there ARE NO FOLDERS, there’s just people… and we should be able to think about them holistically…right? RIGHT?

We KNOW, theoretically, what memories and emotions belong with each person, but the moment you try to synthesize them all together? S̸͕T̝̞̬͓̻͝A̹̩T̳̺̠͝I̩̭̭̭̭͍C͙̮̞͍͙̯͠.

Honestly, it is my belief that this is one of the root cause of splitting, which is a bpd symptom where someone with bpd swings back and forth between idealization and devaluation of people (this is the, “I love you, I hate you” stereotype about people with bpd).

This is very problematic, since both being able to act on feelings related to bad treatment even if someone is currently being nice *and* being able to moderate hurt feelings by putting them into a greater context with other positive behaviors are both pretty important skills for maintaining/ troubleshooting relationships.

It’s not hard to imagine the myriad of ways that this lack of ability to work with the full understanding of who someone is to you can cause massive relationship upheaval.

But this isn’t a thing I’m doing for FUNSIES, folks.

I don’t want my brain to work like this! I hate it! It’s the fucking worst! It’s confusing and hurtful and overwhelming and upsetting and it RUINS 9/10 relationships that I have.

I DON’T WANT TO BE THIS WAY.

Anyway.

The other thing that this aspect of lacking emotional permanence does is make it incredibly difficult for me to compare *intensity* of emotion.

So when I’m sad, it is genuinely, honestly, sincerely the saddest I’ve ever been.

Yes, I can interact with the overall CONCEPT of sadness, but I can only understand it inasmuch as I’m experiencing it right in the moment.

Every time I’m happy, it is the happiest I’ve ever been. I am filled with joy and elation to be alive. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, or has ever hurt, ever, in my entire life.

Every time I’m feeling lonely, it is the most alone and isolated I’ve ever felt. My life is a desolate wasteland and I will be alone forever. I was born alone and I will die alone. This empty hole in my soul will never be filled. I am bereft of love or companionship, and will be until I die.

Sounds dramatic right? Sounds fake?

I wish it was.

Try fucking living it. It’s a godsdamned nightmare.

Coming back to core BPD symptoms, when I’m feeling abandoned, it is the most I’ve ever felt abandoned (and this makes sense when I’m unable to interact in any real way with positive emotions about others to help balance my perspective on this) .

This emotional intensity often exists *EVEN IF THE PROMPTING EVENT DOESN’T FIT THE FACTS FOR THE INTENSITY OF THE EMOTION*.

It doesn’t matter how irrational it is, or how much we logically know that it emotional intensity doesn’t match. Our brains are still going to turn the volume up to 100% in response to pretty much everything.

As I said before, people with bpd are often accused of being “drama queens,” or just generally over-reacting to everything.

In context, though, at least for me, I’m not exaggerating my experience because in that moment, I’ve genuinely hit my threshold for that emotion as I am unable to interact with other emotions that I should be able to compare it to (but can’t).

This means that even if my reaction isn’t in proportion to the thing I’m reacting to, it’s not done on purpose to be difficult, it’s genuinely how I’m experiencing that emotion right in that moment.

This leaves me boomeranging back and forth between super intense emotions, often very quickly.

Think about how often your emotions shift and change subtly throughout the day, and imagine if you ramped each of those emotions up to the highest intensity of that emotion that you could feel.

That’s what it’s like being borderline.

It never stops. You can never turn it off. No amount of skills or therapy or love or validation will ever make it go away. You can learn skills to lessen the impact on others, but the root symptoms are forever.

A lack of emotional permanence is the symptom that, for me, causes me the most distress and suffering out of all of the symptoms since it pretty much influences all aspects of my life and interactions with others, and significantly impacts my behaviors and ability to moderate these behaviors.

Please note that I’m not saying that the behaviors that are prompted by this lack of emotional permanence are *okay*, or should be excused if they are causing harm.

There are techniques and tools that people can use to manage these symptoms. (I used DBT, and highly recommend it if you’re in a place where you can do a lot of hard work on yourself and are willing to try things that will probably make you very uncomfortable. It doesn’t make the symptoms go away, necessarily, but it does help you learn how to navigate the world with them, which can improve the quality of your life SIGNIFICANTLY.)

Boundary setting is an important part of navigating any relationship, but doubly so with someone who is borderline. But the onus of setting these boundaries and working on oneself should NOT fall solely on the person with BPD. Relationships are two - way streets.

Understanding the relationship between a lack of emotional permanence and these behaviors is a critical first step in learning how to best manage the effects that this symptom can have, and how best to support those people in your life who might be struggling with it.

I guess I also just hope that people can understand why it is so fucking difficult for us to change these behaviors, and that even if we manage to do so, the urges and thoughts and lack of emotional permanence that prompt them never really goes away.

So if you’re borderline and you fight this every day to act in ways that are effective? You’re a fucking super hero in my eyes and I hope that the people in your life appreciate the enormous effort it takes to manage this every single day.

For the non-borderline people reading this, I have a message for you as well. To the best of your ability, please be gentle with us, especially if we are working on learning how to manage these behaviors.

Please try to keep this knowledge in the forefront of your mind as you’re interacting with us, and consider how this symptom might be impacting our current behavior. Because it almost certainly is coloring our thoughts and actions.

Please try to be understanding with us as we navigate our responses to it. It never stops. We never get a break. It’s the most disheartening thing. It’s the fucking worst. We don’t ever get to just 'chill out’. Our 'chill’ setting is permanently busted.

We are fighting a battle that is more intense than you could ever really understand if you aren’t experiencing it.

It is a battle that one in ten of us will lose.

One in ten.

Let that sink in.

Ask yourself why that statistic might be so staggeringly high.

Ask yourself how living with this symptom, day in and day out, might contribute to that statistic.

If you love someone with BPD, please try not to forget this. Don’t let your awareness of this slip away.

We can’t.

Having the support of people who actively try to understand how our disorder manifests in our lives and impacts our behavior makes a HUGE difference in our quality of life and our ability to navigate the symptoms, so thank you to those who are making the effort.

Please feel free to share this post and help fight the stigma against people with BPD.

<Here is a link to this as a shareable Facebook>

<Here is a link to a Google doc with an ongoing list of articles and posts about BPD that aren’t stigmatizing garbage>

Please feel free to print this out and give it to whoever to help them understand. Mostly I just want to get the word out on this symptom and help fight the stigma against BPD.

***Edit from several years after I first made this post***

Hi y'all! Just wanted to check back in with some perspective and additional information that I’ve learned since I first made this post.

The most interesting thing that I’ve learned about emotional permanence in the last few years is that there are other neurodivergencies that also can experience this symptom, specifically CPTSD, ADHD, and people on the autism spectrum. So if you really identified with this post but don’t have a BPD diagnosis, there might be other reasons you’re experiencing it.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, for me at least, this symptom likely stems from being raised in a situation where my caregiver was the source of my trauma, but I was unable to be removed from the situation, so my brain had to find ways to coexist and still have positive feelings about my caregiver while simultaneously being able to switch off those feelings to protect myself. I’ve come to the conclusion that, for me, most of my BPD symptoms stem from outdated coping mechanisms that at one point in my life actually kept me alive. It’s a lot easier to have compassion for myself and my symptoms when I think about them as liferafts that once saved me when I was drowning, but I’ve been walking around on dry land now for years with these rafts strapped to my back, and they don’t serve me anymore. I can appreciate them for what they were and why they exist while simultaneously relaxing my grip on them whenever possible (yay for dialectics!).

I also want to offer a little hope to those really struggling with this symptom. I’ve been dealing with it for decades now (I’m a year and a month away from being 40. YIKES. Wild that I’ve made it this far.) and I’ve noticed that my struggle has eased up a little. I still struggle with it, but I navigate it easier and it doesn’t impact me or those around me as much as it has in the past (it’s hard to compare the lessened impact without having full emotional permanence, so I use my behaviors and the duration of my spirals as benchmarks).

I think that this is because of a few things. First and foremost, I think it’s been my own hard work and commitment to continue to grow and strive to be better, not just for others, but for myself. It took me a long time to get to a point where I wanted it for ME and not just for others, and it was largely with the support of people who were willing to hold hope for me when I didn’t have any for myself, which leads me to the other thing that really helped me with emotional permanence. I’ve cultivated relationships in my life with people who are steadfast in their love for me, and more importantly, are CONSISTENT with how they love me. I don’t have to be consumed with fear around what their reactions to things will be because we’ve worked out exactly what works for us, even when stuff is hard. It is honestly terrifying to let myself trust that they mean what they say. It feels like the stupidest thing ever to believe them when they say that they’ll be there, that they’ll respect my boundaries, that they’ll be consistent, but…they have. Repeatedly. For YEARS. So when I’m spiraling about something with them, it’s a little easier to believe that they will show up exactly as they promised they would. I am still afraid, but I am able to suspend that fear just a little to remind myself that they’ve been consistent up until now. It is an active choice I make, every single time, to suspend that fear and to let myself trust. I feel like an idiot every single time. It feels dangerously stupid every single time. But they’ve shown up for me consistently, and that more than anything is key.

I know this might be cold comfort for people who don’t have someone like this in their life. But I didn’t really have it either. And I believe that you can find good friends by being a good friend, and by working on yourself and raising your own expectations for how you want to be treated and what you will and won’t tolerate from others. This only works if you’re equally committed to showing up and being the kind of friend you want to have, but (and I can’t stress this enough) only putting forth this effort for people who have shown their own commitment to working on themselves and being clear and kind and consistent with *you.*

Clear communication is key, on both ends. If people aren’t willing to spend the time to communicate openly and freely with you about your boundaries and their boundaries, over and over again, in my opinion they aren’t worth the effort. It hurts to acknowledge that. It hurts to accept that there are likely people in your life who aren’t willing or able to show up for you like you would show up for them, but it’s important to let them have their own agency to not want to make that effort, and in turn, to take hold of your own agency by cultivating space in your life for prioritizing people who DO make that effort. Matching energy is hard, but it is a worthwhile pursuit. Therapy helps A LOT.

It’s not perfect. There have been speed bumps and road blocks and detours on my journey with recovery, and when I’m in the thick of it, it often feels like I haven’t made any progress (because, you know, I’m feeling it the worst I’ve ever felt it in that moment), but I’m a bit more able to pull back and examine the tangible benchmarks of my progress, and reassure myself that in many ways, I have gotten better, and that is hard to feel like I’m being effective when I am still suffering, even after using skills. Focusing on those tangible proofs really does help me de-escalate faster (which itself is one of those tangible proofs of growth).

I’ve also started to keep a folder on my phone where I’ve screencapped loving and kind things people I love have said to me / about me, so I can remind myself with something tangible. When someone I love says something like that to me out loud, I ask them to text it to me so I can add it to my folder. It’s not a perfect system; I have to remember to go look at the folder when I’m in the middle of the spiral, which is hard to do since my cognitive abilities drop once my amygdala has hijacked my brain, but if I can remember to do it, it helps.

I just want everyone who reads this to know that there IS hope. It will never be perfect. There will likely never be a point where I stop suffering with this symptom entirely, but it has lessened its grip on me a little bit, or maybe it’s more accurate to say I’ve lessened my grip on IT.

I’ll leave you with this playlist I’ve made, filled with songs that range in vibe from “I’m going to get through this bad day even if it kills me” to “fuck you for not believing in me” to “optimistic nihilism” to “actively choosing hope” to “tonight is going to be a good night” to “I’m never going to give up”, along with a sprinkling of songs that just make me happy every time I hear them, even if the lyrics don’t line up exactly with the theme. I hope you enjoy it, it helps me a lot to listen to it when shit is getting dark.

My Hopepunk playlist.

Say hi to people, hold the door open for the people behind you, let people go first when you're driving around. Compliment someone's outfit, pick up trash off the ground, stand up for someone if you feel they are being mistreated.

Someone running to catch up to the person who dropped their belonging. The patient librarian with the elderly patron at the computer. The little kid picking up worms from the drying sidewalk. The local food pantry that stays open on holidays, that actually works extra hard on holidays to help people have a proper celebratory meal. The charities that meet or exceed their fundraising goals, lives saved from donated blood or organs, a species saved by decades of tireless work from thousands of people.

For some people that choice comes more naturally than others. In some situations that choice is easier to make. But even if you're naturally inclined to be kind and optimistic, there will be times when it's a real struggle to not just wallow in the misery, or to be a petty ass gremlin to someone. When it takes real effort to not just take the easy option, because you know it will not help, or will even make stuff worse in the long run.

On the flip side for those who it doesn't come naturally, who really need to work on it, they still can and often do choose both kindness and optimism. Because no matter the difficulty level, it improves your overall quality of life and that of those around you.

Also, choosing kindness is not faking things. If you do kind things you are a kind person, whether you have to actively chose it or not. There is no difference to those you were kind to whether or not you had to think about the action, or if it just happened automatically. You still treated them kindly, and that is what they'll remember. It will mean more than you might think.

The good news is that it's a muscle you can train. The more you forge those pathways in your brain, the easier they are to walk. Where one day you may find that while you may never be a fully natural optimistic kind person, you can pretty well imitate one, and that's all that matters.

Tips for Defying the End of the World.

Printable version here - feel free to print out for yourself or distribute to others for free.

It stops me from doom scrolling: can't go on social media if my hands are full of yarn.

It gives me a sense of agency: a lot of things are messed up in a way that's beyond my control, but I can make something that didn't used to exist. It's evidence that I'm alive and I can impact the world, even if the impact is small.

It builds my tolerance for mistakes: I grew up a perfectionist , which is really bad for my wellness and my ability to complete tasks. But crafts are a great source of low-stakes mistakes to help me learn how to handle imperfection. And while there are certainly mistakes I'll always fix, I also have many opportunities to decide a mistake is acceptable and leave it in favor of getting to the finish line.

It interrupts rumination: even if I'm still chewing on some troubling news, it's not front of mind if I need to focus on getting this seam straight or whatever

It helps me meet good people: although there are obvious exceptions, I've found most craft-centered spaces (IRL and online) to be full or supportive, kind, helpful people in all walks of life

It encourages a growth mindset: I'm always learning new things in crafting, and that builds my identity as someone who can grow and improve.