Hey, are you having a super rough time? Does it feel like the end of the world for you right now?
If so, I’m sorry, because that truly sucks.
I wanna share something with you that’s really helped to calm that apocalyptic thinking when it crops up in my life. This is particularly helpful with anxiety and stress, but note that your mileage may vary, particularly in the case of Just Plain Trauma stuff.
When things seem patently awful, one of the things you need to know is that you’ll get through it—and some rando telling you things’ll turn out fine just isn’t going to cut it. So instead, I want to encourage you to think about a similarly shitty thing that happened to you in the past, something that made you feel close to the way you do now (If this is Actually The Worst Thing You’ve Experienced, this will be a little harder. You’re going to need to pick the second worst and take a bit of a leap of faith. Know that maybe this time will be harder, but it’s still well within your capabilities).
Imagine how you felt when it was happening to you. Panicking, stressed out of your mind, unable to put one foot in front of the other… it probably dominated your picture of your life and felt like you’d never see the other side of it.
Now imagine how you feel about it now. You’d probably look back and say “wow, that sucked. I’m glad it’s over.” There’s a level of relief there, and the pain and fear have been sharply diminished by time and perspective. More importantly, it’s now only a tiny, tiny portion of your whole life experience.
Finally, apply that overall passing-of-time to what you’re dealing with now. Imagine yourself in the future, thinking about the current struggle. Imagine the relief (maybe even humor) you might be feeling. You may have some scars and trauma, or you may, oddly, have nostalgic feelings. Heck, it may be so unimportant that you’ll forget it entirely.
That’s it. That’s the advice. It really derails my train of misery, at least enough that I feel like I can cope again. I hope it helps you, too. And if it doesn’t, I hope you find something that does.
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