Discover your inner strength in this new life

Hard Times: MIND MOVES:Loss can trigger a number of emotions – including depression

YOU’VE HAD a really nasty shock. Like someone punched you in the gut. Maybe you saw it coming, maybe it took you by surprise. You can’t believe it; you want to lash out; you want to fight back. But right now you don’t have it in you; you have nothing left.

You’re not alone. People all over this country are taking blows that they don’t deserve. Their world, which only yesterday felt safe and full of possibility, has been turned upside down.

When a job or person that fills your life and invigorates you is suddenly taken, you can be plunged into a feeling of total emptiness. You live a kind of inner death. Life no longer flows in you. This pain and heaviness is a natural reaction to a loss that touches the very meaning of our lives.

To emerge from this experience of shock and grief, and find a new meaning for your life, you need time and support. Grieving has its own rhythm. One minute you’re doing fine, the next you can be overcome by a wave of emotion that appears to come from nowhere.

You don’t need people who will try to take away your grief, you need a friend who will walk with you through this time and help you to accept it. Sometimes you may need to cry, scream or shout out your pain, frustration and anger in order to free yourself emotionally and begin a new life.

For some people, there is a deeper sadness that shows itself when they experience a loss, a major setback or a time of prolonged uncertainty.

A person may become overwhelmed by this sadness; an inner darkness creeps up on them from the depths of their mind and seems to paralyse them. All their energies are sapped and their zest for life completely leaves them.

Initially this sadness resembles the grief described earlier, but it grows into something that is different. Nothing a person does shifts it in any way; it endures for weeks on end and grows more intense rather than less intense.

This mental state is depression, rather than grief. It may be more than a person can resolve on their own, or even with the love and support of someone close. If this describes your experience right now, you may need to see someone who understands depression and who can help to recover from it.

Your GP may be the most easily accessible and the most appropriate person to talk to about the options available to help you through depression.

People write a lot about getting through times like this. Some of it makes sense; some of it is not really helpful at all.

Here are a few things I have learned from people who have survived, and grown through really shattering experiences. Maybe they can be of some help to you in the days ahead.

Pacing yourself is critical. Expecting too much or nothing at all from yourself will only make things worse. Start by doing one thing at a time. Maybe you need to go to the bathroom. Do it and try to stay focused on that task. Maybe you could make yourself a cup of coffee. One thing at a time, one day at a time.

Plan ahead and give some shape to your day. Work provides a natural structure and rhythm to our daily life. Without it we can feel like a boat without a rudder. Waking up to a day where you have identified two or three activities that you can do makes it much easier to get through that day.

Be thankful for small mercies. Take time at the close of each day to acknowledge whatever worked for you, whatever you have achieved, no matter how humble it may look compared to what you get through when you’re at your best. Be grateful for any act of kindness from others, no matter how small.

Talk to someone. To put words to your pain is the beginning of liberation. Someone who listens and allows you to feel whatever you may be feeling enables you to make sense of what you’re going through. If you need to pull back and be alone, that’s fine. But don’t disappear inside your pain. You need other people to keep you sane; you need their love and support probably more than you ever have before now. Don’t push them away.

The story that you were making with your life has taken a cruel twist. But you will write a new story. This one will be closer to your heart and closer to the heart of the world. One that will have space for loss and grief but also for love and courage and the joy of making it over the line when the odds are stacked against you.

The hero inside you will discover hidden strengths you never knew you had. You will find a new kind of innocence that sees life as the fragile adventure that it is. Something that requires endless imagination and creativity; an enterprise we never master but one which continually invites our trust, as it takes us beyond our illusions, closer to our dreams.

* Tony Bates is founder director of Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (www.headstrong.ie)