Coping

There is a depression that creeps in, unexpectedly, when a life changing event happens.

We think we’re strong, we think we’re able, we think we can handle anything, and it’s disconcerting to find out that maybe we can’t.

This feeling of not doing enough, of  not helping enough, pulls at our heart strings and muddles our minds. How do we cope with feeling inadequate to the task? Inadequate to the problems? When we know deep inside that we’re much much stronger than that?

And so we freeze, unable to decide which direction to go or what to do about anything. We spend our days sitting. Staring out the window, playing Solitaire. All because we don’t know if we are strong enough to do this.

We walk delicately along the rim of the abyss, acknowledging our inadequacies and just take it one step at a time.

We aren’t bad, we aren’t weak. We are simply overwhelmed. There’s nothing wrong with that
nor is it something that we can ignore. The trick is to take care of ourselves before we can take care of others.

J