Imagine, if you can, losing control of your body. You have known control of your body your whole life. Whenever you wanted to, you could grab your keys, go out the door, and do…anything. And now, you can’t.
Imagine, if you can, losing control of your mind. You’ve never even considered such a possibility. Yet here you are, a hostage, trapped within your own body, trapped within your own mind.
When you are so utterly helpless—when everything feels so totally out of control—what can you possibly do?
You can do this:
you can believe this is temporary.
I admit: even that much may not be possible, right now.
When things go wrong to the extent necessary to get you here, in this awful place, there are consequences. One of them is that it may not be possible, right now, for you to believe things can get better.
I will say that again: it may not be possible, in this moment, for you to believe things can get better.
You might think of this as a feature of being in crisis. A lousy one—yes. But there’s no need to fight it. You might even try to accept it, a little bit, as just how things are, right now.
If it’s not too much work, you might try to notice it, when it happens. You might say to yourself something like, “Right now, I don’t believe it’s possible things will ever get better—but that’s what people who are in crisis say to themselves.”
You might tell yourself, even though you don’t believe you’ll get better, there are lots of other people who believe it on your behalf. Family. Friends. People who are trying to help you. Even people who don’t know you.
Like me.
I believe it.
I don’t just believe it; I know it. This is temporary. Things will change. Even though it feels right now like the absolute immutable truth, there is no possibility you will be stuck in this moment forever.
Hold that idea. Write it down. Keep it in your pocket. You are going to get through this. Things are going to change. That’s what things do.
And if you can do this much—if you can put the words “this is temporary” into your pocket—you have just taken your first step toward regaining what you have lost.
You have just proved you can still do something.