Have you ever felt so lost and alone that you didn’t know which way to turn? So overwhelmed that you were frozen, not knowing what to do first?
I have. Experiencing someone I loved taking his life, altered my perspective forever. My emotions dominated my every thought, sitting on my skin, inside me, all around me. My heart physically ached. I fell apart. I got back up, fell apart again.
What do you do? When you feel you’ve hit rock bottom? No longer living your life as you once did, but instead everyday rituals all seem frivolous and inconsequential? Nothing is off limits. Everything hurts. Words, deeds, ideas. You can curl up, close your eyes, close your ears and try to make it all go away but you can’t close your thoughts. It’s hard to fathom feeling better, moving forward.
Yet somehow, humans DO. Even though logic seems like a foregone trait, it’s there. We can get better, just don’t know it yet.
In the midst of my endless pain, looking for the quick fix, and wanting it to go away, I turned to modern bandaids. Alcohol, numbing medications, trolling the web for answers from strangers. I reached for the low hanging fruit, the easy to do. And I don’t beat myself up for it.
In our world today there’s a plethora of instant remedies, but the problem is they don’t cure. I finally came to realise that these distractions are gauzy dressings; they only protect the wound – they don’t heal it.
At some point we need to remove the dressings, like we do for our kids. Rip off the bandaid, feel the pain and start healing.
Let go to move forward. Feel what you need to feel.
It took a lot of soul searching before I accepted the advice I had been given from two different therapists. They kept saying to get better you must go through it, Deb. Hard to hear, but the best advice I received. The thought of being that vulnerable was almost too much, but I did it.
Forget the ‘putting on a brave face’ crap.
It takes courage to pull yourself up, to look for answers. It takes diligence to try different things, fail, and try others until you create the right of solutions that make sense, the things that work for YOU.
The incredible thing is once you start, you start. You’ve done it! You have accepted that it’s going to be hard and requires work.
You’ve admitted to yourself that you can do this.
And then, as you discover yourself in the context of your new life, answers begin to appear. Slowly at first, but they build momentum, then more momentum, and then more.
In time you start to look back and wonder, how did I do that? This is when you know the bandaid is off and the wound is healing.
My humble suggestion is … fight the battle, overcome, and get help if you need it. Your future self will thank you.