I have always had a powerful fear that someone I love will die unexpectedly, with no chance to say goodbye. I told myself repeatedly that this was unlikely to happen. Then it happened. (With a number of complicating factors, including that the precipitating event was a national tragedy that took place very near my childhood home.) I pretty much went out of my mind with grief, and was also deprived of my greatest weapon against my anxieties.

The thing that got me through it all, in the end, was repeating: "Either I will survive this, in which case I can use my smarts and my skills to rebuild my life, or I won't, in which case I won't care." It was a pretty grim mantra. But it worked. And I did survive it, and use my smarts and my skills to rebuild my life.

I put very little faith in abstract phrases like "things will get better". But I have a lot of faith in myself and my own abilities to make my own life better, whether that means seeking good things or excising harmful things. As long as I'm alive, I can find some way to do that. And I don't believe in life after death, so I'm not actually very afraid of dying, because... if I die then I'll be dead. *shrug* I don't know. It just doesn't have much of a hold on me. I don't want to die, but I don't fear it.

Edited at 2015-12-01 09:27 pm (UTC)

i don't know if you remember this post; it's something of a sanitized version of that time in my life, but there were periods where i survived purely by lacking the drive to kill myself. to elaborate, it was a convergence of many factors, but the break up with this person was the crux. we had a platonic but very intense relationship, she was at once a huge part of my support network and the focal point of my own support, and a lot of my self-esteem/self-image was tied into being Somebody Who Is There For Her (and her own tempestuous and manifold issues).

so when this fell apart - and it did so in an incredibly public and humiliating way, with me waking up to a livjournal post numbering all the ways i've wronged her and leeched of her, and hordes of perfect strangers in comments supporting her and berating me - my entire... structure of self, maybe, fell apart as well. i just couldn't figure out how i am supposed to proceed, and where, and why even should i, even the person who (presumably) knew me the most and into whom i put most of my love and care saw me this way. i had other things, in a sense that i wasn't starving or in pain or homeless or poverty-striken or whatever, but it felt, very clearly, that, you know, the center cannot hold (and it couldn't).

the post is an anecdote so it had a clear epiphany, which was not quite the truth in a strictest sense. and the truth was - there was therapy, of course; at some point i started taking medication; there was a couple of people i clung to, interim, to just stop myself from disintegrating. but it was like, these were things i had to keep doing, and if you're asking about what made me keep on keeping, it was...

i could say 'faith in god', but it wouldn't be precisely true. as in, it wasn't in my religious denomination sense (suicide is a sin, etc), and i didn't turn to religion as such, didn't pray, didn't go to church, nothing. but i somehow knew (believed, if you wish) - and i still do, and i probably will always do - that there's a, a purpose? a plan? not in a sense of 'god is keeping me alive so that at age sixty i could step on the butterfly and it will prevent wwiii', and not in a sense 'god's plan for me is something great and amazing that will happen to me later'.

just that there is some kind of sense in what's happening to me now and what will happen to me later, and overall, and that i might as well - stay and see. wait and see.

First I want to thank you for posting this because I've just read the first two people's comments and found them really, really moving and helpful.

... So here's what I can add...

Although I'm not going through anything like what you're going through, I have Stuff I'm dealing with that's left me feeling, much of the time, like the light's been dimmed in the world, that life is going to be dark and hard from here on.

The thing that's keeping me together right now is focusing on other people. It distracts me from my own situation, which sounds like avoidance, but at this point, when my thoughts turn inward, it ends up being a horrible morass. Whereas, when I focus outward, I feel better in almost every way. Remember how you described your feeling when you tried the medical marijuana? How you got not only relief but also clarity of thought? That's how I feel when I'm focused outward. It's only temporary, though... the other stuff will come back and hit me like a ton of bricks. But I guess I still believe in my own tenaciousness, that I will somehow find a way... I guess I have a hope, not quite a belief, but a hope, that something will come along from the outside [or maybe the inside; not ruling that out] that will help, because the constellation of circumstances is always changing.

I have actually lost everything, except for my kids, on several occasions. When there was no hope, I just had to keep working toward something better. I just had to believe that I could ultimately make a difference and change the situations. In each event, that worked. Ultimately.

Everything in this world, good or bad, will end someday. The good won't last forever and, thankfully, neither will the bad.

My youngest child was murdered by a teenage neighbor. CPS grabbed the other kids, FBI looked at us as initial suspects, murderer tried to complete the set by setting house on fire with us in it. So . . . didn't lose everything but it was a horrible loss. We're still hurting a couple years later. Rest of family still having issues (sleep disorders, bad grades, self-harming). Getting through . . . that was pretty much a day at a time. Deal with what we had to, try to cope, try to find a therapist who didn't freak over the crime or the family structure (poly triad).

I can't say things have gotten better. The sharp pain is now an ache. What I've held on to has been work and duty. Taking care of the family, working on a creative project, showing up at the day job and getting the tasks done. Church has been supportive and cathartic at times but I've never been good at faith. I've resigned from some duties to focus on the important ones (no longer a military reservist or raid tank).

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

When I was depressed enough that I was regularly planning ways to kill myself I would often fix on something in media that I was actually looking forward to. Next episode of something, next chapter of Saiyuki, whatever it took. Just one more. Or I'd pick another. There was also the knowledge that my daughter would know I had, at the very least, died.

The easy answer, for me, is sheer stubbornness. Just get through the day. With that, I survive. To find hope, though... I think it's usually about finding the small things. I craft--bags and blankets and stuffed animals and jewelry and boxes--and I can get down on myself a lot of the time, thinking it's nothing special and no one wants what I have to offer (which often generalizes beyond just the crafts). But then a friend will say they are amazed at how good I am at something, or I'll meet up with someone to hang out and they are using a bag I made them, or they post a selfie wearing a necklace I made. Those little moments (not only relegated to the crafts, though they're easier to spot) tend to be the bright spots I thread together into something resembling hope.

I just kept going, even when I secretly hoped a bus would hit me. And eventually I felt a little better, then a little better, then a little worse, then a little better, etc.

One of the books I find most reassuring is Baboon Metaphysics by Dorothy Cheney and Richard Seyfarth. I find it comforting to read about how much people and baboons are alike.

This has happened to me twice, once as a teenager and once as an adult. The adult time was based entirely around the circumstances that were going on and I had to say yes, I will abandon the following set of extremely important things and prioritize self-care, which was awful and I still grieve but it was necessary and stuff is basically okay now.

The time as a teenager was also based on circumstances, but I couldn't change them at all; I just had to wait until things changed on their own, through the kind of existential pain that meant every moment felt like sandpaper on every single nerve. I got through that in some unhealthy ways, which I won't go into, and some which I think were healthy or at least not terrible.

Basically, I had to stop thinking about the future except at very specific, pre-planned times. I set aside times to interact with doctors and therapists and, at that time, college planning, and the rest of the time the future was not real. It did not exist. It could not affect me. The thought of feeling all the pain I was feeling for any significant amount of time was unbearable, so I outright said, fuck it, I have no idea what is going to happen, it could get better, it could get worse, it could be like this forever but fuck the future I will only think about it when I absolutely have to. The worse I was feeling, the narrower that focus had to be; at its very worst, it was, can I handle living for another five minutes. Then five minutes after that. Then five minutes after that. There was nothing beyond those five minutes. All I had to do was handle them. (When it got to the point where I literally wasn't sure about five minutes, I called in emergency help. Possibly I should have done so slightly sooner, but it worked out okay.)

The mantra I had at that time, which has been very useful later in life, was "I can only do what I can do. I cannot do what I cannot do." No shoulds, no woulds, no mights. If I couldn't do something, that was not a moral failing on my part. If I tried to do something and couldn't, that was neutral information. My capacities to do things wildly varied based on how I was feeling, but I tried not to expect to be able to do something if I had been able to do it the previous day, and conversely I tried not to assume I couldn't do something if it hadn't worked the last time I tried.

What I tried very hard to do was to maintain no expectations at all. I would do what I could manage doing in the amount of time I could handle thinking about. Nothing else existed, or mattered. It was a hard adjustment when I eventually got better and had to start making long-term plans and thinking about longer stretches of time again, but it was an adjustment I was able to make.

I have used the same narrowing-down of focus in later life to, for instance, walk farther carrying a heavy load than I would have thought possible. I knew I could not carry x weight x miles, but I could carry it to that tree within eyeshot, and to the post I could see from there, and to the corner after that, and three steps farther, one step, one more step, one step after that.

Looking back on it now, I can clearly see that feeling like I was losing everything and everything would be awful forever wasn't realistic, but it sure as hell felt that way at the time. (I say that not to suggest that it's always unrealistic for anyone to feel that way -- it's not -- but because I'm feeling wibbly responding to this post, like I haven't suffered enough to deserve to weigh in, and adding this qualifier is the only way I can convince myself to do so.)

The main thing that got me through, each time, was my dog. (Two different dogs at two different points in my life.) Both because it was a warm and loving and unjudgemental creature who was always SO HAPPY to see me and that made for moments of brightness and because I was responsible for the dog, damnit, and I couldn't (still can't, really, in my own personal sphere of practical reality) think of anything worse than letting a dog down, so I had to keep going and that was that.

During the first of those two really horrible stretches, a friend sent me this:

Jane Kenyon, "In and Out."

The dog searches until he finds me
upstairs, lies down with a clatter
of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing
saves my life -- in and out, in
and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

Which, just, yeah. Just yeah.

ETA: Thank you for asking this and thank you to your commenters for sharing. I cannot remember the last time I read such a striking set of comments, both here and over on Dreamwidth.

Edited at 2015-12-02 03:18 am (UTC)

Here via sartorias.



Work helped. I had responsibilities, including to people much, much worse off than I was. People who had literally lost everything: homes, families, savings, everything they owned including the clothes they were wearing. I knew that they managed to go on; there was no excuse for me not to do the same.

It also helped to remind myself that life does not last forever, so however bad things were that wouldn't last forever either. In other words, this too shall pass, one way or the other.

Grit and stupidity.
Still got the scars.
One of the truths of the universe is impermenance, everything changes, the good, and the bad. Endure and you will survive, survive and you win.

I don't know that I'd call it a truth, as such, but my personal motto is "Keep breathing."

Eleven years ago, something really lousy happened, and I didn't want to go on. Almost gave up. But, as you see, I'm still here. I made it without therapy/antidepressants (though I admit I don't recommend doing it alone as I did), and without any religion to lean on (I'm an atheist). What got me through was a new kitten, someone who loved me unconditionally and needed me. Every day was still hard, and it stayed hard for a few years after. But he helped, distracted me. Gave me something to smile about. He kept me breathing. And I made it. And now I can look back at that bleak period and be relieved that I kept going.

Honestly, one of the things that kept me going was the knowledge that suicide was an option. Since I had a way out, I could keep going just a little bit longer. I could always kill myself tomorrow, or in an hour, or five minutes from now, or when I finished writing the essay that was due tomorrow. Just not now. I got through multiple years like that, though thankfully not in sequence.

And when even that failed, there was still rage that this ridiculous, petty set of circumstances, these pusillanimous, ignorant assholes who were hurting me, should be the thing that came so close to destroying me. I was worth a better death than that.

And when I was too tired even for rage, there was the quiet, feeble voice in the back of my mind that kept saying...nothing so treacly as hope. What it said was 'you aren't done,' and it was more curse than encouragement.

Not the most healthy coping mechanisms. But I'm here now, so they must have done some good.

I dunno about 'finding hope', because despair is the absence of that. But, as for coping...

There's a lot of expectation management. I might not be able to manage a big thing, but two or three little things can be sweetly charming. The support of friends and family helps. Breaking jobs into tinier bits so I can keep track and cheer myself on and feel like I've done something. Keeping mental checklists of, Did I eat today? Did it have some kind of nutritional value? Any exercise? (Poor eating isn't the cause of a lot of problems, but it sure makes things a whole lot worse.) Owning a pet, both for the cuddles and because being responsible for a living thing means I have to have a basic level of cope going on. As mentioned earlier in the comments, consciously going out and doing something nice for someone else will help get me out of my head (so, perhaps not as altruistic as it immediately appears, but they still get help so who's counting?) Getting more comfortable with saying, 'No, I will not be coming to your big family gathering (because being trapped with that many people is like being scraped with nails and also I would be carsick and tired) how about I visit a week earlier when it's quiet.'

Twice; once I saw coming, and once I was ambushed by it. What has been most striking to me is that the things that felt like existential crisis to me were not the things that other people felt "should" cause me that kind of pain. But there isn't really any "should" in feelings, any more than there is in pain. (I read a fascinating and disturbing book about our perceptions of pain; its thesis is that perceptions of pain are entirely subjective, worse for some people and better for others, but what we're willing to medicate for is prescriptive and based on how badly we think someone "should" feel. This is unrelated to how they do feel. We need to up our game as caretakers and medical professionals to account for this.) The first round for me happened around the same time that I was getting divorced. And everyone felt sympathy for me about the divorce, which was really quite kind and reasonable. (Still painful, of course, but not a threat to the idea that I might ever be happy again. It was just two people being the best adults we could be, and taking care of ourselves and each other by returning to friendship rather than romance.) The few people who knew the details of the truly devastating event mostly seemed to feel that I should get over it and focus on my real losses like the divorce. And at the time, I had no hope that things would get better, and it took at least a year for them to even begin to.

My coping mechanism at the time was to try new things. I traveled. I got a tattoo in Ireland. I went to Confession for the first time in like 12 years. (I grew up Catholic, I left the church when I was ~15, so it was a weird thing to try. But the priest was kindhearted and hilarious, even if he couldn't help me.) I tried having a casual fling and hated it. I met new people and listened to their stories and helped where I could -- even if my heart was broken forever and my faith in humanity severely dented, I could still do good in the world. I wrote and wrote and wrote, so much bad poetry, and a little good poetry. Eventually, I got over it. It took ten years or so. But I have been fortunate; life is good again. I still have scars, I think almost everyone interesting has some. That's okay.

Have you ever had a time when it seemed that you had lost everything you'd ever cared about, or were about to? Yes I have, and I want to point out the use of your words: seemed, about to. These words are fuel to the fire of fear. Fear is natural, but can be OVERCAME. To apply "Faith" of any nature to this, is having an underlining comfort in knowing you'll overcome the hurt - but you have to let go of the hurt in order for this to function properly ...which leads to your next "?"..
How did you get through? Knowing that life goes on, there's another day, etc. You have to stay busy with other things instead of pondering on the sadness; find a reason to smile; cry happy tears...
How do you hold on to hope when you can't find any objective evidence that things could ever get better?
Sometimes, hope is all you have (it works hand-n-hand w/Faith): hope that it'll get better, easier with time; hope for the strength to carry on and move forward. If it doesn't get better, have the hope to withstand what's next...
Have things ever gotten better when that seemed impossible? Yes it has... and, yes it will! "Even if you don't believe in God/religion, you still need 'something' to believe in: TRY YOURSELF - You're stronger than you know (until you've had to be)" (c)WBR15

Peace be to you

I'm bipolar, and I have certain triggers that can send me into a deep depression. Alternately, I can be catapulted to the highest of highs for no apparent reason. But I deal more often than not with depression. I take care of my mother, who has multiple sclerosis, and if she has a particularly difficult day I tend to have moodswings and feel like I'm losing everything. I feel as if my life has been taken away from me, and I have no future.

What gives me hope? There are days when I feel hopeless. I find that hope comes unexpectedly. There isn't one thing I can point to and say 'this gives me hope'. I don't know if it's the moodswings, if I'm just going the other way, or what else it could be. If I were religiously inclined, I'd say it was the grace of god, because I honestly cannot explain it. It just comes over me, and suddenly I'm at peace. I don't even need hope - just peace.

I wish I could give a more definite answer. I suppose it's easy for me to say all this, as I'm feeling at peace right now. Five hours ago I might have had a different response. But I think, if nothing else, knowing that I won't always feel depressed and that good things DO & WILL happen makes me hopeful.

There was a time when things seemed bleak and dark. My grandfather who I adored ended up with severe Alzheimers dementia. I'm coping better now but there was a time when I wcouldn't accept his diagnosis. Your book All the Fishes helped (before I friended you). I kept thinking, "if my clients, my friends, my family and Rachel can make it (and you and they've been through worse than me), then I can do it too. Just one day at a time."

There was another time - a major end to a friendship where the friend had turned very abusive and made racial slurs constantly. It taught me not to care about the opinions of people who treat you and others badly.

Edited at 2015-12-02 10:30 am (UTC)

I think the closest I ever got was last year. I was definitely sick, everyone agreed on that, but it took a while to figure out why/how. I couldn't breathe properly, which made my primary forms of music really hard. (both singing and flute kind of require breath. And standing for too long was also a problem which made handbells difficult.) Because I couldn't breathe, I couldn't walk any real distance or up stairs except very slowly. I couldn't eat much or I'd throw up, so I ended up basically surviving on jello, popsicles, and broth. It was harder to breathe if I lay down, so I could only really sleep sitting more or less up and even that only kind of worked. It was utterly terrifying. Though once they figured out what was up, I pretty much got medication which made me spend a week feeling even worse (I was warned about that part) and then made me feel SO MUCH BETTER. Some things took longer to bounce back than others and some still aren't /quite/ the same as previously, but by and large I'm back to where I was at least.

Things which got me through:
There being something else to check or look into or try.
People at church noting my absences and saying they missed me when I wasn't there.
Cutting back to the very barest 'I refuse to lose this' kinds of things. (I could sing if I could sit, though I had to breathe more often than I normally would, so we arranged for me to be able to sit through concerts.)
Knowing the people who would be hurt by my death and being unwilling to inflict that on them.
Breaking things into little tiny chunks (make it up 5-10 stairs and then rest) or figuring out if I really needed to do them or if someone else could or if they even really needed to be done.
Finding something I still enjoyed and which wasn't /too/ tiring/painful and clinging to it.
Swimming. (It was amazing how much less I hurt when I was floating in water. It was also amazing just how bad getting out of the pool was because suddenly all that pain was back.)
Making the little things I could do as enjoyable as possible.
Worrying only about the next day or even the next hour or the next task. Realizing that things took me as long as they took. So getting up the stairs would take as long as it took and trying to rush it was only going to make things worse.

I just keep putting one foot in front of another and keep going. I've learned the hard way, don't try to think it through. for me, that was a dead end. My body doesn't do something for no reason. just because I don't know what is doesn't mean it's not important. Trying to think it through is good for doing math, physics, ect. but didn't work for me on dealing with this feeling of hopelessness. and, I've learned that if it doesn't kill me, ( like its not cancer) I just put up with the pain and try and manage just that. you can't cry if your laughing.
I hope maybe this will shed some light on how I've lived with this. But you don't know what I'm talking about. I'll send a photo of me in the next post. remember, I am 6'2.

Different things helped me at different times.

Yoga helped because it taught me that discomfort passes, that I am more than my distress, and that nothing terrible happens if I just sit with that distress for a while and allow myself to feel it.

Repeating to myself over and over "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so" helped, because it encouraged me to try to change the way I was thinking, which turned out to be more possible than I thought. Thanks, Mr Shakespeare!

Being a religious witch and/or at different and overlapping times being an Ignatian Christian helped because they both gave me sets of tools to use to make those changes.

Good information about suicide methods helped, because on the very worst occasion, it stopped me from trying anything that would more likely have disabled me than killed me, while at the same time allowing me to put together a plan that probably would have worked (thus removing the feeling of being trapped) but required several months of logistical preparation (by which time the meds had kicked in so that I didn't actually try to go through with it).

Sometimes, I got through it by being a bitter loner. I know that sounds horribly unhealthy, but honestly -- if I had to listen to one more person tell me everything happened for a reason, or to believe in the greater plan, or the sun'll come out tomorrow -- I was going to explode. Sometimes I got through it because survival gave me the satisfaction of flipping life off.

Sometimes, I got through it because I was the only one choosing and/or able to face the shitstorm without collapsing, so I would turn everything off on the inside. There were times the options came down to stepping into gory medical situations and demanding action from others, or letting someone die. There were multiple times.

Sometimes, I got through it because the certainty that my son should not have to be "the strong one" was deeper, far deeper, than my desire to curl up in a closet until it was all over. My actions in the middle of a crisis would become my son's model and memories. I got through it because I held fast to knowing I was, with every decision, contributing to my son's worldview and sense of self.

People asked me how I could handle continuing to teach karate in the midst of everything. Really, I couldn't *not* teach. And if I could spar or pound a heavy bag, I could keep enough of an anger-edge to keep from slipping into despair. Anger felt strong; despair felt terrifying. I was aware of the choice I was making.

Teaching also let me forget everything. When I bowed on the mat, the students needed all my attention. It was clean and simply and clear--the opposite of everything else right then.

Lastly, I got through it because I had one friend who never tried to make me feel better, never gave me a platitude, never tried to make things seem better than they were. She'd listen to my, "I'm fine" line, then answer with, "I'd be beating everyone with a crowbar and cackling like a madwoman before running naked in the woods if I were you." And I loved her for it because she gave voice, safely and without judgment, to what I really felt on the inside. I could say all the angry, hopeless, cruel and inappropriate things to her knowing she'd both take it seriously and not try to "make it better."

She saved my life.

And you know what? I think I made the right choices, but certainly didn't come out the other side without scars and damage. Nightmares. Awful memories triggered by certain everyday smells. So on and so forth. You could likely go down the usual post-trauma checklist. And I know much of that will never go away.

But I don't think I would have been unscarred had I chosen differently.

Hmm. I just re-read what I wrote and it sounds a bit raw. I'm going to leave it the way it is, though, just in case it's helpful.

I had to focus on the now. The future is just too big, too much, when you consider it as a grand totality. But if I could look at little pieces of it, I could handle that. "This afternoon wasn't terrible." "I enjoyed reading that article." "I 'm going to do this one piece of work tonight." Etc. In little pieces like that I could handle life, when I would have collapsed if I had to consider anything past the next day or two.

Friends help a lot too. Or even just any kind of social contact. It's hard to remember when I'm depressed, and I end up pulling away from everyone despite everything, but objectively I can see that I feel better when I have some kind of interaction with others, even if it's just small talk or watching a movie together or something low-energy like that.

I'm not sure I have any actual "hope" left after 46 years on this planet. I often feel everything I try to make life better (in any way) falls apart and sometimes even makes things worse.

The only thing that keeps me going is stubbornness and sheer refusal to give up.

(I came because asakiyume mentioned your query.)

My own answer is that I have absolutely no idea, though I could tell of efforts I've made and gifts of lifts I've been given. But as for what combination of which things with what happenstances, I couldn't possibly say.

Though I think managing to keep open and paying attention helps.

Standard disclaimer: my answers apply only to me. Your mileage may vary.

I find that there are three main techniques that keep me going when dealing with despair:

1) Keep moving forward. I often do a visualization exercise where I visualize despair as a mountain pressed right against my nose, so that I can't even see that it's a mountain. It's simply a looming, overarching force that is everything I can see or sense...
...and then I visualize myself turning my back on it, and taking a step away. And then another- simply exercising my will, forcing myself to continue to engage with the world, continuing to move forward until the mountain is, when all is said and done, simply a mountain, receding in the distance with every footstep.

2) Remember that abstract positive things are still positive. Sometimes, when things are at their worst, I forcibly remind myself that while things look small and faraway, as though viewed through the wrong end of a telescope, the world is still the world, neither better or worse than it was before this gloom came over me. Sometimes when the world is at its bleakest, I'll go for a walk, and watch children playing, and remind myself that joy does still exist, whether or not I am capable of feeling it at this particular moment: that love is still love, joy is still joy, and they're still out there, waiting for me to find my way back to them. Sometimes, just watching them play can even help that happen, like a sunbeam through the clouds.

3) Check for leaks. I've learned to be extremely rigorous in protecting my emotional health: to change habits, or even end interacting with people, if they are negatively affecting my emotional health. It is far, far too easy to get overwhelmed with the world's problems; as a friend once said to me, "Help other people, but help yourself first."

Mine have basically been 'wait it out' (how I got through feeling like everything that had ever been important to me had been taken away from me when I went crazy) and 'throw as many coping strategies at it as possible while waiting it out' (how I handled 2009-2014 ie my friend and colleague's horrible slow death mixed in with multiple serious relationships crashing and burning in various spectacular ways). Coping strategies included therapy, acupuncture, yoga, talking about it constantly, spending a ton of money, distracting myself from one horrible situation by focusing on a concurrent different one, and crying a bunch.

Probably not useful, but ... I am terrified of death, which I can't really believe is anything but non-existence. Which completely horrifies me and if I think about it, puts me into a panic attack.

And to roughly quote a favorite character (Jik in the Chanur books by C.J. Cherryh) when he's being tortured for information: no matter how bad the pain, it was better than not feeling anything at all, forever.

So yeah, my only mantra in these situations has been "You're still breathing! Look, you're still alive!"

And then I figure out what the next thing I actually need to do is, even if it's just something like unloading the dishwasher. Baby steps.

Edited at 2015-12-03 10:43 pm (UTC)

A timely question, in December, since I have like-whoa Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I look for beauty. I look around for anything, however small, that is beautiful. A fallen leaf, the balance between regularity and variability in the pattern of cobblestones on the road, a bird in flight. I try to dwell entirely in the moment of experiencing that beauty, to value it for itself as a thing disconnected from any problem or trouble in my life.

I try to sit in silence, listening to my breathing and feeling my heartbeat. Or, because I'm Catholic and it works for me, I say the rosary. The rhythm of the prayers, the feel of the beads in my fingers, the weight of tradition like a secret club anyone can join, make me feel less alone, less mentally cluttered.

And my rosary is a thing of beauty, which I love for its own sake. I made it out of flawed beads, every one of them too damaged to go into the rosaries that my mother used to make. I call it the Beads the Rosary-Makers Rejected, and it reminds me of the beauty inside us flawed humans.

I keep on top of my self-care: exercise, light therapy, time in bed (whether or not the insomnia strikes). I promise myself that things will look better when I'm rested and illuminated.

And I try to practice kindness. I think compliments at strangers: "That's a great color on you" or "You are totally rocking that scarf" as I cycle past them. I trawl my Twitter feed for people having a bad time and send them encouraging replies.

I don't know if these things really help, or are just a not-unpleasant way to pass the time until I would feel better anyway. Either works.

Edited at 2015-12-04 12:20 pm (UTC)